1. a planetary image: Saturn Before: After: Stacked all the reds, greens, and blues with MaximDL 4 and ended up getting a fuzzy blob. I used the upsharp masking to make the rings actually look like rings. I sharpened it a little and made it more vibrant with photoshops "Vibrance" option Taken By: Ardis Herrold
Camera: SBIG ST-402
Date: 1/26/12
Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona
Exposure time: 0.01s
Number of pictures: 150
2. a galaxy: M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) Before: After: First I stacked all the reds, blues, and greens with MaximDL 4, it didn't look too hot. I tried to use any filter... something to make it actually look like a galaxy, nothing really worked. I was looking at the Hubble photo contest software and download the program called Liberator, I'm not completely sure what it does to FITS files but a lot of math is involved, so I took a wack at putting my combined RGB into that--wow. It automatically made it look amazing, the ring of the galaxy that were never visible in Maxim showed up. I tried to save this and open it back up in photoshop but I discovered it was simply a screen strech--it didn't change the actual image. So, I toke a screenshot, pasted it into paint, croped out everything but the image, and saved it as a JPEG. I then proceeded to photoshop and changed the color levels to make it look as realistic as possible. Taken By: Ardis Herrold Camera: SBIG ST-402 Date: 7/27/08 Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona Exposure time: 5.0s Number of pictures: 36
3. a nebula: M78 (Reflection Nebula in Orion) Before: After: Stacked all the filters with SalsaJ first, while along the way changing them to 16 bits to they would stack in the end. I changed the brightness and contrast along the way to make it look better. I took my stacked image to photoshop and increased the vibrance quite a lot. I then changed the hue and saturation, testing out the different colors. I choose red primarily because it looked the coolest. Making the saturation and vibrance higher created a lot of noise, so I used the blur tool to try to make some of the darker nebula smoother. The final thinig I did was burn the edges to make it black. Taken By: Ardis Herrold Camera: SBIG ST-402 Date: 12/29/08 Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona Exposure time: 8.0s Number of pictures: 88
Before: After: Stacked all the reds, blues, and greens individually in Maxim 4 DL then combined them as an RGB image. I then took the RGB to photoshop and tried to get the yucky looking flares out of the picture by burning the picture. I then googled what the beehive looked like when professional processed it and noticed there was different colored flares on the brighter stars, and I wanted to try to recreate this. I had to make a new layer so that the flare wouldn't effect the lighting of the image because that's not what I wanted, I only wanted the orb. It was hard because I had to guess and check as to wear to put the orb because the layer wasn't see-through. I made some flares brighter and some dimmer. Once I did all of that I used the magic wand tool to just select the specific flares, and then I lightely changed the color with the airbrush option. Once all of those were done I blurred the edges so they weren't as harsh. Personally, I think it looked good. Taken By: Ardis Herrold Camera: SBIG ST-402 Date: 1/26/12 Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona Exposure time: 1.0s Number of pictures: 72
5. a sky scene image (wide field) or other (comet, aurora, etc): Planetary correlation (Jupiter and Venus) Before: After: Took the picture with the "Camera Awesome" app and used the edit option on the app, then burned the sky a little with photoshop to try to calm down the noise Taken By: Alison Alexsy Camera: iPhone 4S Date: 3/11/12 Location: University of Liggett Feild, Michigan Exposure time: 1.0s Number of pictures: 1
6. the Moon Before: After: Stacked all images in Maxim DL 4, tried all these different filters but nothing was looking good, it either made one part good and over exposed one part or just looked fake. So I decided to use this software I downloaded from the Hubble contest website page called Liberator, I put that in there and wow, it looked soooooo good. However, it was a screen stretch I soon found out so I had to take a screen shot of it, go into paint and crop the picture and save it as a JPEG to put on here. Taken By: Ardis Herrold Camera: SBIG ST-402 Date: 3/11/12 Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona Exposure time: 1.0s Number of pictures: 1
7. one image from a mined internet archive Before: After: Downloaded the three different filters fromhttp://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/index_fits.htm and stacked them with Maxim DL 4. I then went to photoshop and used the despeckle command to make the not so bright stars go away. I then changed the hue/saturation to make it look purple, personally I thought it looked the best. It made all the stars look purple too so I just burned it and hoped for best. Taken By: Jim Misti Camera: SBIG STL-11000m Date: N/A (salsaJ nor Maxim knew) Location: Misti Mountain Observatory, Arizona Exposure time: N/A Number of pictures: 3 8. one image that you personally have taken (see #5)
Before:
After:
Stacked all the reds, greens, and blues with MaximDL 4 and ended up getting a fuzzy blob. I used the upsharp masking to make the rings actually look like rings. I sharpened it a little and made it more vibrant with photoshops "Vibrance" option
Taken By: Ardis Herrold
Camera: SBIG ST-402
Date: 1/26/12
Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona
Exposure time: 0.01s
Number of pictures: 150
2. a galaxy: M31 (Andromeda Galaxy)
Before:
After:
First I stacked all the reds, blues, and greens with MaximDL 4, it didn't look too hot. I tried to use any filter... something to make it actually look like a galaxy, nothing really worked. I was looking at the Hubble photo contest software and download the program called Liberator, I'm not completely sure what it does to FITS files but a lot of math is involved, so I took a wack at putting my combined RGB into that--wow. It automatically made it look amazing, the ring of the galaxy that were never visible in Maxim showed up. I tried to save this and open it back up in photoshop but I discovered it was simply a screen strech--it didn't change the actual image. So, I toke a screenshot, pasted it into paint, croped out everything but the image, and saved it as a JPEG. I then proceeded to photoshop and changed the color levels to make it look as realistic as possible.
Taken By: Ardis Herrold
Camera: SBIG ST-402
Date: 7/27/08
Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona
Exposure time: 5.0s
Number of pictures: 36
3. a nebula: M78 (Reflection Nebula in Orion)
Before:
After:
Stacked all the filters with SalsaJ first, while along the way changing them to 16 bits to they would stack in the end. I changed the brightness and contrast along the way to make it look better. I took my stacked image to photoshop and increased the vibrance quite a lot. I then changed the hue and saturation, testing out the different colors. I choose red primarily because it looked the coolest. Making the saturation and vibrance higher created a lot of noise, so I used the blur tool to try to make some of the darker nebula smoother. The final thinig I did was burn the edges to make it black.
Taken By: Ardis Herrold
Camera: SBIG ST-402
Date: 12/29/08
Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona
Exposure time: 8.0s
Number of pictures: 88
Before:
After:
Stacked all the reds, blues, and greens individually in Maxim 4 DL then combined them as an RGB image. I then took the RGB to photoshop and tried to get the yucky looking flares out of the picture by burning the picture. I then googled what the beehive looked like when professional processed it and noticed there was different colored flares on the brighter stars, and I wanted to try to recreate this. I had to make a new layer so that the flare wouldn't effect the lighting of the image because that's not what I wanted, I only wanted the orb. It was hard because I had to guess and check as to wear to put the orb because the layer wasn't see-through. I made some flares brighter and some dimmer. Once I did all of that I used the magic wand tool to just select the specific flares, and then I lightely changed the color with the airbrush option. Once all of those were done I blurred the edges so they weren't as harsh. Personally, I think it looked good.
Taken By: Ardis Herrold
Camera: SBIG ST-402
Date: 1/26/12
Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona
Exposure time: 1.0s
Number of pictures: 72
5. a sky scene image (wide field) or other (comet, aurora, etc): Planetary correlation (Jupiter and Venus)
Before:
After:
Took the picture with the "Camera Awesome" app and used the edit option on the app, then burned the sky a little with photoshop to try to calm down the noise
Taken By: Alison Alexsy
Camera: iPhone 4S
Date: 3/11/12
Location: University of Liggett Feild, Michigan
Exposure time: 1.0s
Number of pictures: 1
6. the Moon
Before:
After:
Stacked all images in Maxim DL 4, tried all these different filters but nothing was looking good, it either made one part good and over exposed one part or just looked fake. So I decided to use this software I downloaded from the Hubble contest website page called Liberator, I put that in there and wow, it looked soooooo good. However, it was a screen stretch I soon found out so I had to take a screen shot of it, go into paint and crop the picture and save it as a JPEG to put on here.
Taken By: Ardis Herrold
Camera: SBIG ST-402
Date: 3/11/12
Location: Desert Peak Observatory, Arizona
Exposure time: 1.0s
Number of pictures: 1
7. one image from a mined internet archive
Before:
After:
Downloaded the three different filters from http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/index_fits.htm and stacked them with Maxim DL 4. I then went to photoshop and used the despeckle command to make the not so bright stars go away. I then changed the hue/saturation to make it look purple, personally I thought it looked the best. It made all the stars look purple too so I just burned it and hoped for best.
Taken By: Jim Misti
Camera: SBIG STL-11000m
Date: N/A (salsaJ nor Maxim knew)
Location: Misti Mountain Observatory, Arizona
Exposure time: N/A
Number of pictures: 3
8. one image that you personally have taken
(see #5)